Selling Electrical Modernity in Shenbao : Electricity and Advertisements in Republican Shanghai, 1912–1937

Abstract This article offers the first sustained and focused study of how electricity and electrical devices were marketed to Chinese consumers in early twentieth-century China. Focusing on Chinese-language advertisements placed in the well-known newspaper Shenbao by the Shanghai Municipal Council’s Electricity Department and its successor, the Shanghai Power Company, the article conceptualizes “electrical modernity” as a bundle of purchasable promises through which electrification was promoted to potential customers. The article shows that these advertisements fulfilled both a general educational function, informing readers of the uses and advantages of electricity, and connected electricity to three domains central to contemporary modern aspirations: economic modernization, hygiene, and the modern home and family. The article also demonstrates how electricity was marketed differently to industrial customers and urban households with the use of distinct vocabularies and imagery.